Inspiration Strikes AKA Frank's Not Coming Home 2
by AngellicRae
Summary: Sequel to Frank's Not Coming Home For Christmas. Rating for language again.


JE owns all the characters here. Rated R for bad language and malicious humour.

This short is a sequel to "Frank's Not Coming Home for Christmas"

Inspiration Strikes

AKA Frank's Not Coming Home 2

By Rae

Feb 2008

I'm not the most self-aware man. I don't sit around assessing the underlying reasons for my actions or obsessing about their potential outcomes. The state of my navel has never, and never will, be a subject of interest for me. The only time I'm likely to consider my navel is when I'm looking for lint inside it. For the most part, I'm pretty content just to sit back and enjoy the picture of my new Plasma while wishing I had purchased earphones to plug into it so I could tune out my mother-in-law and the rest of my loony household. And I'm okay with that. I like to think I'm like any other man who has put in a hard thirty years with his company and wants the opportunity to just enjoy retirement without having to get stun-gunned, shot, or witness a dirty bump and grind by my aforementioned mother-in-law, all while seated at the dinner table. I'm just looking for some peace and quiet, and when it's necessary, I'm not above using alcohol to sedate my wife or her mother, but I figure that makes me just like the rest of the country anyway.

Where this all leads me is the cold front seat of my Buick as I sit at a corner on a late-February evening with my eyes trained on the house down the block. You see, there was an untoward incident the Christmas before last. My wife calls it untoward. I call it payback. Actually, if I'm being really honest, my wife prefers no one in the family speak of it at all, and anytime someone outside the family brings it up we find her pulling out a fresh bottle of her Four Roses. For the sake of her liver we don't talk about it, but that Christmas I did something the people in my family couldn't believe.

I let my true feelings be known.

We don't do that in the Plum family, at least not without involving sugary desserts. If you want to express happiness or relief, offer some pie, bake a cake. If you want your displeasure known, inform the culprit of the desserts he or she is going to miss out on for the next month or until forgiveness is begged, whichever comes first.

I didn't do this that day, though. Okay, truth be told, I've never baked a dessert in my life and so expressing emotions via sugary foods doesn't seem very likely. Give me a grill and a hunk of meat or some foil-wrapped vegetables and I'm right at home; hand me even a basic cake box and point out the just add water instructions to follow and I swear I'll end up blowing up the kitchen. That may be where Stephanie gets it from. In my case, it's just the way things were with my generation. I'm taking steps to make sure my daughters and granddaughters don't have to put up with the same thing, which is part of what led to me sitting where I am. I love my wife, but there's more to life than hiding in the kitchen or obsessing over the pleat in your towels. In fact, all this is likely what led me to my need to express myself last Christmas.

You see, when I got annoyed that day, the person doing the annoying knew it immediately. He couldn't help but know it when I started using the razor-sharp wings of the Angel from the Christmas tree for something other than catching the reflections of the blinking lights while sitting on top of the tree. I'm pleased to say the Angel was back atop the Christmas tree this year as well, no lasting damage done to it during the attack. Ellen thinks it's back up there because it has sat up there every year for the last twenty-six and we have to honour tradition. In my mind, it's back up there because it's always a good idea to have a weapon at hand with this family.

Now, granted I ended up first spending several hours in a jail cell after my emotional liberation, and then having to listen to Ellen bitch and moan for the next seven months about the effect on our family's reputation in the neighbourhood after the incident, but that night was a life changing event for me. I spent the rest of the year thinking back every once in a while about how it felt to be slashing away at that Morelli prick when he pissed me off, and each and every time it lightened my heart and brought a smile to my face.

I tried reproducing the catharsis that came from the act in various ways throughout the year. I took up lawn darts but found the manufacturers have taken to replacing the heavy metal-tipped darts I always had as a kid with plastic-headed ones because this nation is filled with morons who can't figure out you shouldn't toss a dart at another guy under the pretense of "fun." If you're going to huck something like that at a guy, at least have the balls to mean it. I'd had big plans of picturing the Morelli prick's body lying in the circle of the plastic hoop that represented my target, thinking my imagination could simulate what I knew I couldn't allow myself to do in real life. But those damn plastic lawn darts took all the fun out of the experience. Instead of kicking up some sod as they landed, the way the old ones would, they would just land on the ground with a delicate sound of the grass beneath them being gently – and temporarily – flattened. It got so I almost wanted to take the Christmas tree Angel to the damn darts, so that seemed like a good time to find a different activity.

Baseball was next and it seemed promising at first. I thought the opportunity to carry a heavy bat and imagine that Morelli prick's face on the ball every time I went to smash it had some promise. I could remember the look he'd had on his face as he did that fucking Humping Man dance all around my living room, and take pleasure out of smashing it and every other feature off his face – in metaphor since doing such a thing in reality would get me arrested and Ellen wouldn't like that, no matter how much joy it would bring me. But all that was moot since I ended up putting out my back the very first time up to bat, so that idea went out the window, too.

And so it went all year. I'd think up some seemingly innocuous hobby in which could hide my underlying intentions and could join in order to try to recapture my cathartic moment without having my wife start ironing toilet paper and drinking herself into a stupor on a daily basis, but then find it in no way brought back the utter joy and relaxation I had felt that Christmas day. All year it went on like this, activity after activity, hobby after hobby. And given the fact I wouldn't trust that battle-ax my wife call "mother" anywhere near soldering or carpentry tools, I was stuck taking my pleasure out of daydreaming about Morelli's expression in order to find my bliss, as the kids say.

That's what led to my New Year's resolution.

After a year of searching and not finding an activity that would duplicate the catharsis I now so desperately desired, I realized there was one more thing I could do which I hadn't considered before. And that's what started my new hobby of stalking and punking Morelli.

It began with little things. Spray painting pretty slogans on the side of his house and POS cop car, calling in anonymous tips questioning Morelli's honesty as a vice cop, and sending him love notes and flowers at the precinct signed by assorted men's names entertained me for a long time. In fact, I was as giddy as a school girl the first six weeks after New Year's. Ellen even started to ask me if there was something going on, but she was more than willing to believe me when I told her the HD cable package we bought at Christmas time was what had me in such a euphoric state. And if I started going out more often in my cab, and staying out later at night, she didn't bother to question the idea that I was just spending more time with the guys at my lodge. But never before had I been so constantly happy, and it showed in the way I started pulling out my wife's chair at the dinner table again, and spontaneously dancing her around the kitchen on occasion to music only the two of us can hear.

I'll give one thing to that Morelli prick: He's been good for my marriage.

Burg rumour has it that even the sainted Angie Morelli has gotten ahold of the stories about the flowers her son has been receiving and has started to question if there's a different reason for why he's in his mid-thirties and hasn't settled down with a woman. All in all, I was enjoying myself.

Then, one night when I was on my way over to his house to Vaseline all the windows of his cop car since it wasn't going below freezing that night, I pulled around the corner just in time to see him walking out the door. I idled as he got into his SUV, and realistically, I could have waited until he was officially out of the neighbourhood and then have gone on with my evening's task, but curiosity got the better of me and I decided to follow the little shit. I have to say, for a cop he's not very aware of his surroundings. I was on his tail, only a block back at most the whole way, and he never once picked up on the fact he was being followed. And it's not like my cab is inconspicuous, even if the fare light was turned off for the night. But he didn't notice me at all that night, or any of the subsequent nights I've followed him from his house to a variety of women's homes since then.

For the most part, these nighttime jaunts have been amusing for me. I get to watch Morelli make an ass of himself as he attempts to moonwalk to the door, and laugh at him as he checks his lip gloss and gives a satisfied grin at his reflection in the mailbox surface at every house he goes to before ringing the bell. And every night, my car barely has time for the engine to stop ticking before the Morelli prick is done his thing and is lightly springing his way down the steps and to his car to return home for the evening. The first few times, I followed him home to make sure he was actually in for the night. But it quickly became clear what his pattern was so I stopped following him directly, and took to just eventually meandering my way over to his house for the evening's "gifting" session.

Last night was different, though. Oh, Morelli still went out and spent his requisite twenty-two minutes fulfilling dreams (I'm guessing he always stops for a couple of drinks on the way to the bedroom in hopes the woman's a lightweight drinker and won't realize how shafted – pardon the pun – she's getting in the whole thing). But when he was leaving the woman's house last night, I was startled to realize I recognized her from the police station.

Every other woman Morelli had been with until then was someone I recognized from the Burg as having gone through a marital break up or some other confidence-shattering event within the last couple of years. I suspect that's why Stephanie not only got together with the Morelli prick, but stayed with him for as long as she did: Her confidence was absolutely destroyed after she found her ex-shithead banging that whore Joyce Barhardt on the dining room table, and it took her a few years of knowing Ranger and hearing his reassurances and compliments, while unfortunately dating that Morelli prick at the same time, before she recognized she deserved to be treated well. It worked out for the best for my Stephanie, but not all these women would be lucky enough to find a man who treated them as an equal instead of as a walking dishwasher.

The woman Morelli was with last night didn't fit into that same category. Not only did I know she worked as a clerk at the police station and had plenty of self-confidence, I knew for a fact this woman was married. Now, I don't presume to suggest I know every facet of the life of every person who lives in the Burg – I save that kind of thing for my wife – but from everything I had seen and heard around, the woman's marriage was a happy one. They were often seen at the store together, still holding hands after seven years of marriage, and often took the time to go out together on a date night to keep things fresh.

So what was she doing banging a piece of shit like the Morelli prick?

The only answer I could come up with was that Morelli had gotten bored with scamming the low-self esteem ladies, and had decided to move on to something a bit more challenging, and a lot more ego-stroking if successful.

I asked around a little today, after my curiosity got the best of me, and had heard that the woman's husband had been out of town for about three weeks on business for his job with the city. I knew the woman and I knew her husband, and both were good people. It didn't seem likely to me that this was something she would think to do to her husband if Morelli hadn't been pushing for sex the entire time the other man was gone. I'm not mentioning this to excuse her actions, but from what I can tell, when the Morelli prick is on a mission for sex, he seems pretty capable of laying it on thick and working at it until he's turned a woman's head, even when it's against her own better judgment. I suspected that's what happened last night. But it didn't mean I was going to support allowing it to happen again.

That's why tonight I was sitting outside his house tonight with my standard surveillance items, including an ever-ready pint of Vaseline. But tonight I also had a disposable cell phone and a plan just in case he decided to pay a visit to the same woman.

When Morelli came out of his house, stopping on the doorstep to adjust the hem of his pant leg over his pink fishnets, I started my car's engine. There was absolutely no chance I would allow him to lose me tonight of all nights, and if it meant I had to follow right on his bumper, I was willing to do that. As he drove, it became clear pretty quickly that the Morelli prick was taking further advantage of the woman's absent husband, and I decided it would soon be time to put my plan into action.

I pulled to the curb at the corner when he turned onto her street and watched as he pulled up in front of her house just a little down the block. He didn't even have enough respect for her to park several houses down for the sake of any curious neighbours. I waited while he put one last swipe of lip gloss across his lips and checked himself in the rearview mirror, sat there shaking my head as he started to cha-cha his way up the sidewalk. When I saw him give his nasty little laugh (A/N at bottom) I dialed his cell phone.

I saw his head jerk back at the sound, his displeasure obvious even from my position over one hundred feet away.

"Yeah," he said by way of answer.

My Burg knowledge base was going to serve me well this evening. "Mr. Morelli?" I said, lowering my voice and pinching my nose to change the tone. "This is Myron Primo from down the block. I thought you should know your dog has apparently gotten out of your house. It's made quite a mess on Gina Szorak's lawn, across the street from your place. I don't know what you've been feeding your dog, but it doesn't seem very healthy. We tried knocking on your door, but apparently you've gone out for the-"

The Morelli prick cut me off, "Yeah, fine, I'll be right there to take care of it."

"Well, I'm sure the whole neighbourhood would appreciate that."

"I'll be home right away, Mr. Primo. Thank you for calling." The last was said through what sounded like gritted teeth. I watched as the woman he was supposed to be "visiting" opened her front door, obviously inquiring as to whether he was going to come in. He waved her off, and whatever he said in response must have been more to his true nature than she had previously experienced because I could hear her front door slam all the way over where I was parked.

I was whistling to myself as I drove back to his place. I let the distance between our vehicles stay at around a block and a half because I wanted him to be out of his car and good and annoyed by the time I got there. My fingers drummed a little beat in time with my whistling and I even rolled down my window a crack to let some of the cool, chemical-heavy Jersey air into the car. I thought to myself that it was a good night to be alive and living in the Burg.

Morelli was standing on his front sidewalk, fists on hips, when I pulled around his corner and drove down the street. I watched as he walked out onto the edge of his snow-covered lawn and started calling for the dog again. I thought the choice of standing on the snow was a fortuitous one on his part.

I gunned the engine, aiming the front of the car for where he was standing. I bounced a bit on the seat as the front wheels jumped the curb, and then it was all smooth sailing as I bounced him off the front bumper.

Morelli went flying back about five feet, and just missed hitting a tree before landing in a snowbank. I suspected the snow cushioned his landing enough that he would manage to avoid any additional bruising on his backside.

His eyes were wide and his mouth was gaping open and closed like a fish. He obviously still didn't know what to say as I climbed out of the car and went to stand over him, so I gave him a hint.

"You need to stop any romantic shit you have going on with any married women," I told him. "Consider this some friendly advice."

His jaw managed to drop just a little bit further before he finally found his voice.

"You ran me over!"

"Yes," I said. "But more importantly, you need to know it will happen again unless you stop screwing up other people's marriages. If they want to mess them up for themselves, that's their choice. After tonight, you will not actively endeavour to help them with it."

"You fucking ran me over!" he repeated.

I couldn't help it. I rolled my eyes. How Stephanie managed to put up with his stupidity for three years would forever be beyond my comprehension. "Son, there are more important issues here. Try to keep up."

He put his hands to one side and tried to lever himself out of the snow, gingerly testing both legs as he did it. From the way he winced, it seemed likely he would have at least a sprain to one ankle, and some nasty bruising all around, but otherwise appeared fine.

"I'll make this simple so you can understand it," I said. I waited until he had stopped mumbling to himself and shaking his head and had focused back on me before continuing. "You will stay away from both my daughters. You will stay away from any married women in the Burg. And if you don't, you'll find out what I can do when I have a real weapon in my hand, and not just a Christmas tree Angel or a car."

I turned around and started back for my car. It was then, once my back was turned, that he found his bravado. He discovered it in the form of a snowball which hit my back.

"Stay away from your daughters? With pleasure! They're both weird and ... and ... not Burg!" he screamed. "And you know what else! You're just as crazy as your psychotic daughter! She ran me down with her fucking car, too."

I stopped. I could feel a smile creasing my face as I turned around to look at him. "Stephanie hit you with a car?"

"She ran me over with a fucking Buick when she was eighteen! I should have pressed charges against her! Then maybe she wouldn't have turned out the way she did. And you know what else? I'm going to press charges against you, too!"

I couldn't help but give a little laugh. "My daughter ran you over with a car when she was eighteen?" The little chuckle was threatening to turn into a full belly laugh.

"It's not funny!" he screamed. I heard a dog start barking a couple of blocks over, probably the pitch of his voice reminded it of one of those dog whistles.

He tried to follow me as I started back to my car, bitching the entire way about psychotic women and their psychotic fathers. "You're to blame for her turning out the way she did," he said.

"You're right, Joe. I should set a better example for my daughter," I told him as I climbed in and behind the wheel. I rolled the window down more so he could hear me. "I'll try to remedy that right away."

The expression on his face was superior for the brief moment before it turned to blinding panic as he realized I had just put my car into drive and was gunning it at him again. He screamed, a high pitched girly-scream a moment before impact occurred and his body went flying another four feet through the air before landing on a section of hard-packed snow this time.

I waited until I saw he was still moving and then used my new disposable cell phone to call a lodge buddy whose son was a paramedic, specifically one who I knew could keep my involvement quiet, and asked for him to arrange for an ambulance for the Morelli prick.

Joe was rolling around on the ground, moaning to himself as I put the car into reverse. I stuck my head out the window and called to him, "It's probably best if you conveniently forget who it was that hit you tonight." When it looked like he was about to object, I pulled out the digital camera that I had taken to carrying in my car when I realized what he was doing every night. I had been photographing his visits every evening on the (very) off chance Stephanie lost her mind and decided to give the prick another chance.

I turned on the camera and hit zoom on the last image stored on its memory card, holding the camera out at arm's length so Joe could see himself standing next to his last conquest.

"I don't think the mayor's brother will be pleased to see you paying a late night visit to his wife, do you? In fact, I think he might just be so displeased that he'd mention his displeasure to your captain, don't you?"

His skin turned almost as pale as the snow he was lying on as he shook his head. My point having been delivered, I rolled up the window, put the camera in its place of honour on my passenger seat, and let my car reverse off his front lawn, taking pains to ensure I gently eased it down over the curb.

Mission accomplished, I found myself whistling as I drove home for the night.

A/N: Bonus points if you recognize who did this in JE's TTGD


End file.
